The Robins of Iverhill: Chapter 31 – The Finals

NOTE: To read Chuck Miller’s book “The Robins of Iverhill: A Minor League Fairy Tale,” as well as the short stories in the “Christmas in Iverhill” series, visit this link.

My name is Genvieve McCarling. Nearly 40 years ago, I was the manager for three seasons for the Iverhill Robins of the Intrastate Baseball Association, a minor league baseball circuit in upstate New York.

We finished the 1973 season out, and actually made the playoffs. It was a best-of-five series between ourselves and New Providence. Smokey and Phillipstern pitched games 1 and 2, and we won both games 6-2 and 5-3 – mostly because Clete Olson was unstoppable out of the bullpen. Nobody could get a hit off him. He was fearless.

The series returned to Wilson Field for the third and fourth games; New Providence took the third game, 3-1, when we let a couple of errors at third base cost us some runs.

It was really Game 4 that defined us as a team. We did everything right. Smokey came on to start the game on short rest, and he was perfect through six innings. Unstoppable. And strange thing – I thought I heard him say something in French to the opposing batter. He called the batter something derogatory, I don’t dare repeat it to you. Still, I never knew that Smokey spoke, let alone French. I took four years of French in high school, I never thought I was very fluent in it, but if he had only told me, I would have certainly spoken to him in French if he didn’t understand English.

We were up 3-1 – Gene Raveler had a triple and later stole home on a drag bunt by Hunter. And the strange thing about that triple – he could have stretched it out to a home run, I know he could – and he would have been thrown out at the plate. But he knew that we had Mark Hunter up next, who was the league’s best bunter. For the first time since I saw Gene Raveler when I was a kid in the stands at Wilson Field, Gene Raveler made an unselfish play that benefited the team.

We were on our way to win the game.

Then Smokey motioned to me to come out to the mound. He handed me the ball. He pointed to the bullpen.

I knew what that meant. And so did Clete Olson, who walked out to the mound without any hesitation. Smokey walked to the dugout – then turned toward Olson. He shook Olson’s hand, patted him on the back, and tipped his cap to the cheering crowd that packed Wilson Field that day.

Then I saw something I didn’t think would happen. With two outs in the top of the 8th inning, and New Providence’s speedy little shortstop Donny Karmack on third, and looking to go home, I saw Olson walk over to third base to talk to our replacement third baseman, Willie Frees. Olson walked slowly back toward the mound.

“Hey, Karmack,” Frees said to the runner. “Can you give me a second, I gotta clean off the bag for a second.”

Karmack took his foot off the bag so that Frees could dust the dirt off the base.

I was shocked. Olson had actually transferred the ball to Frees, then walked back slowly to the mound. The minute Karmack took his foot off the base, Frees – who had the ball hidden in his glove – tagged out Karmack and ended the inning. As long as Olson hadn’t reached the mound before the tagout – it was a legal out.

And we were three outs away.

Ninth inning. We were still up 3-1, but New Providence was threatening. Again, they loaded the bases, but Olson pitched his way out of a jam, mixing up curve balls and fastballs to the point where Trunks just put his glove somewhere in the general vicinity and the ball went straight into the mitt. Jake Kopcynski – three strikes, the last one a swing that nearly tore his shoes apart. Andres Martinez – lined out to short, the runners held.

The crowd at Wilson Field were screaming like crazy. It was Olson versus Goon Grevey. Olson threw a fastball. Grevey swung at it and missed. Strike one.

Olson set him up with a curve. Fouled it off. Strike two.

Another curve that just missed the outside corner. Ball one.

Another curve that Grevey just got a corner of. Foul ball. Count 1-2.

Slider that went in the dirt. Grevey didn’t even flinch. 2-2.

Another slider. Grevey let it go by. 3-2.

Then came a fastball. I thought it started to dip down.

But Goon Grevey hit the ball on the sweet spot of his bat. And Goon Grevey hit the ball with the force of a whip.

The ball sailed toward center field. Raveler went back. Back as far as he could.

The ball started to drop from the sky. Raveler matched the ball’s trajectory step by step. Never took his eyes off it. Trusted his feet when he heard his steps change from soft grass to hard warning track dirt.

One chance. Only one chance. Gene leaped. Glove in the air.

Thunk.

The ball sailed right into the upper webbing of Gene Raveler’s mitt.

He landed on the ground. The ball was still in the webbing, he grabbed the glove with his other hand to hold it tight. Then he slowly got up, holding the glove up – the umpire could see the snow-cone catch. Game over. Robins win. Robins win the 1973 IBA pennant!!!

Oh my God if that ball had sailed six inches higher, nobody could have caught it – it would have bounced off that old “hit sign here, fan wins a car” sign that Gene Raveler hit twice in one game all those years ago!

A cascade of Robins players ran out onto the field, hugging and congratulating and cheering and celebrating. We had just won the title, beating New Providence – winning on a hidden ball trick, on a miracle catch, and on unselfish team play.

And there was only one thing I could say at that moment.

“EEE-YAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”

Gene hugged his teammates, then ran off the field – toward the dugout. Where he saw Terry Wallis, the little boy from the hospital, who was now working as one of our batboys. He gave Terry the biggest hug of all, then gave him the game ball and his outfielder’s mitt. Then he went up to the stands, and gave hugs to my parents, Christopher and Theresa McCarling. “Thank you for taking care of Terry,” Gene said to them.

“Thank you for saving him,” my father said to Gene. See, after I got Gene out of jail earlier this year, he told me about Terry’s situation. He also said that Terry needed a better home, someone who would help raise and protect him, and get him away from that dysfunctional life in the trailer parks. I told the only people I knew who had experience raising other people’s children – my parents. They agreed to help Terry’s mother as much as they could, and then some.

That series was the final one ever played in the IBA. The league folded after that season. There was some talk about some of the teams merging with an independent league in central New York, around the Utica-Syracuse area; others wanted to get the Robins and New Providence and Bark Creek into the New York-Penn League, but there wasn’t any interest by that league in coming up here. Besides, the Wilsons were tired of losing money every year with the Robins, and having their bread-making profits siphoned into a team that cut into their profit margin.

It’s been so many years since that season. I lost track of a lot of the players, sometimes I hear from them, sometimes I see them in the news or on the sports page. In fact, I didn’t know what happened to some of them until you contacted me for this oral history research project you’re working on about the IBA.

I know that Zach Phillipstern is now the athletic director at Iverhill High School, where he made it a point that anybody – male or female – could play for his team, so long as that person could hit, field, and run.

Gerard “Smokey” Dulieau retired from baseball and returned to his home town of St. Francois de Beauce in Quebec, where he now coaches youth sports. He also works as a motivational speaker. I never would have guessed. And I found out that, believe it or not – we’re related. His father was Henri Baton, who played for the Iverhill Magedomas hockey team in the 1950’s – and was the same Henri Baton who spent time with my mother, Elizabeth Smithers. There’s so much I wanted to ask him. But Smokey never came back to America, and I never went to Canada.

Clete Olson – I got a card from him the other day. He played a few years in the major leagues, and appeared in some playoff games. He retired from baseball in 1980, and returned to Iverhill, where he and Amy got married. After his playing days were over, he went back to college, and today is a successful doctor at Otswego County Medical Center. He specializes in treating sports injuries, and he told me that they’re working on opening the new Elizabeth Smithers Cancer Treatment Center adjacent to the medical center. He says it will be one of the finest facilities in New York for treating leukemia, lymphoma and other cancers.

I used to keep in touch with Eugene Raveler. I know he and Treasure broke up after the season, he moved to another team somewhere in the South, he played in Japan, played for maybe another ten years. He never won another championship.

I understand you were able to interview Gene about his time with the Robins – that he was able to answer some of your questions before he passed away.

His daughter Jennifer got in touch with me and gave me the news. I made the trip to Gene’s Ohio hometown for the funeral services. I never knew he was battling diabetes for the last five years of his life. She told me he died peacefully, doing something he loved to do in his later years – fishing in a nearby pond.

After the funeral, I gave Jennifer a special gift I had kept for years. “I told your father I had lost this years ago,” I said to her, placing a scuffed baseball in her hands,” but that was because I was mad at him for something, something that’s not important any more. Your father hit this ball off a sign in Wilson Field in Iverhill, New York – the longest home run ever recorded in the league. He dented a sign with it. I saved this ball ever since I was in high school, and I saved it for years afterward.”

She thanked me. We talked for a little while, and then I had to go back home. I still had work of my own to do. For the past ten years, I’ve been the commissioner of an independent baseball league in the Southwest. Six teams, small towns, each one’s just a drive away from the other. It’s great baseball on a starry night, and the fans and the players have a great rapport.

And Monty – Montgomery Montpelier Mauntmaurency the fourth?

Sometimes, when I sleep too long, I think I see him in my dreams. But then I wake up, and my dreams fade from my memories.